Ace's Come Back
by AlexACheevy
Summary: This takes place fifteen years after the summer of Ray Brower.  Ace is down on his luck, but looking to change that.  Enlisting help from his old pal Eyeball, he will make an attempt at retaining his former glory.
1. Chapter 1

**AN: This is just kind of a short introduction to see if this would be the kind of story that people would be interested in. I'm not entirely sure where I'm going with, but I have a vague idea and will do my best to make it worth reading.**

He sipped his drink slowly. A migraine was beginning to form behind his eyes and he began to rub his temples in a circular motion. His life had become a never ending merry-go-round. When he drank he was filled with nostalgia for the year when he was seventeen and his name had meant something to this town. Now, five years later he was nothing. When he was sober, which was becoming very rare these days, he was all too aware of that fact. So he drank, he remembered, the headaches came, he fell asleep, woke up and did it all over again. He was working down at Shimmy's Auto Repair, but he wasn't sure how much longer he would be able to hang onto that gig. He really didn't even give a shit anymore, anyway.

In those days, he had been Ace Merrill. His car was fast, and his women faster. He had had friends. Eyeball Chambers, his right hand man, Billy Tesio and Charlie Hogan. A few others. It didn't matter now though, because they were all gone. He had no friends. He had no girl. He drank alone. And these days, everyone just called him John. He did still have his looks, though. At least there was that, he thought. He placed the money for his drinks on the bar and sauntered outside in his hood's strut. He struck a match and lit a ciggerette that had been tucked behind his ear. A slight drizzle had begun while he was inside.

"Shit." He muttered to no one but himself. He had no jacket or any other form of refuge from the rain. Shrugging his shoulders, he stepped out onto the sidewalk and began the walk home.

The next morning, he awoke with a start. He looked around his bedroom. It was small, cramped, and dirty. He was sick of this life. He wanted to take his life back. Take his goddamn _name_ back. He wanted to be Ace Merrill again. He would take back what had been stolen from him five years ago, by four tired boys who had no idea what they were getting into. That was when things had begun to turn sour for him.

He sat up on the edge of the bed, his bare feet dangling off onto the carpet. He wore nothing but a pair of grey skivvies. He rubbed at his face. He needed to find Eyeball. He hadn't spoken to him in almost three years, but he knew that if anyone could help him, it would be Eyeball. Billy was married now, with a bunch of snot nosed kids. Charlie Hogan had died in a car crash back in 1962. He had lost track of the rest of the gang. The boys who called themselves The Cobras back then. It seemed as if it had been one million years ago. On another planet.

Ace had big things in mind, though. People would know his name again. They would fear him, and also, respect him. He had to get moving though. There was no time to fuck around.


	2. Chapter 2

**AN: I don't know if anyone besides the ever awesome .kid is reading this story, but just in case, I wanted to point out that I kind of fudged the summary and changed it from taking place five years after the summer of Stand By Me, to 15 years. When I started out, I wasn't really sure what I was doing with this story, but now I have a clear idea of where I'm going and the time change should make sense fairly quickly. Hope you enjoy **

He traced his finger down the names in the phone book until he reached the one he was looking for. He quickly dialed the phone number and waited for someone on the other end to pick up.

"Hello?" A woman with a tired and weary voice asked. It was obvious that she was a woman who had been smoking for the better part of her life.

Ace cleared his throat, "Um..ma'am? Mrs. Chambers? This is A-John Merrill. Junior's boy. I was wondering if maybe I could talk to Richard."

His heart beat quickly in his chest. He was all strung up and hoped that Eyeball's mother would be able to provide him with a phone number, or at least an address, for her second eldest son. For a moment, she was silent. Then, "Rich hasn't lived in this house for a long time now, Johnny. Surely you must have known that?"

Ace tried to keep the contempt out of his voice when he responded. God how he hated to be called Johnny. No one had called him that since his own mother had finally stopped breathing three years ago. "Yes, ma'am. I was hoping that you could give me his phone number or address?"

Again, a few seconds clicked by with nothing being said. He could only hear her shallow breaths on the other line. "I think it'd be best if you stayed away from Richie, John. You were never anything but trouble. Your father was trouble for my husband, and you were trouble for my son. Richie has gotten into enough trouble on his own. He doesn't need any more help from you."

Ace clenched the hand that wasn't holding the phone into a fist. "Mrs. Chambers, I'm a grown man now. I left all those legal troubles in my youth. I've been holding down a straight job for quite a while now." He bit his lip as he said this last part. "I just wanted to catch up with an old pal. He was my best friend."

Eyeball's mother seemed to soften a bit. "Well, alright." She relented. "I'll give you the number, but I swear to the Lord and sonny Jesus, if the police come around here asking questions, I'm going to give them answers. I'm tired of sweeping up Richie's tracks. I just lost my boy, Johnny." She let out a shallow sob, and then regained control of herself. She was, of course, speaking of Christopher. Ace had seen the newspaper article, much like another man who had known Chris in another life. "I'm really sorry about that, ma'am." Ace answered hollowly, while thinking _good riddance_ in his own head. Mrs. Chambers gave him the information he needed to find his old friend and they quickly hung up their respective lines.

Ace wasn't quite ready to phone Eyeball yet, though. First he needed something in his stomach. He walked downtown to a café to grab a bite to eat. He also sipped on the day's first beer. It was much too early to be drinking, but Ace had been a functioning alcoholic for more than ten years now. A taste of the spirits was just like coffee to him. He needed it as much as he needed to breathe. After he called Eyeball he knew that he would have another call to place. He would have to be care about it though. Very careful indeed. He didn't want anyone to remember him asking around for a particular writer that had been born out of this shithole of a town. A particular famous writer that had once pulled a gun on Ace. Gordon LaChance probably thought that he was all paid up to Ace Merrill, but he was wrong.


	3. Chapter 3

No one had called Rich Chambers "Eyeball" in a long time. He had moved to Portland when his old man had finally croaked. He hadn't married, or fathered any children, that he knew of. He worked at a gas station, filling up tanks and checking oil. He made enough money at it to eat and pay rent for a one room apartment. He hadn't thought about Ace in a long time. He hadn't thought about Castle Rock in even longer. He was aware that his brother had been stabbed to death. His mother had called him the weekend before, crying. He had taken the news in stride. He and his younger brother had never been close. He did feel sorry, though. After all, he had known Chris since he had been born. He did not return home to attend the funeral, regardless. There were too many memories there. Sometimes the nostalgia he felt for his youth was too much to bear. He would give anything to have the summer of 1959 back in his hands.

In those days, all that mattered were cars, girls, and beer, in that order. It had seemed like the nights lasted forever and there was always someone up for excitement. He didn't have any friends in Portland. He spent most of his nights eating Dinty Moore beef stew on his couch and watching reruns of The Lone Ranger. Occasionally he would pick up a girl, although as he got older it seemed less worth the trouble.

When the phone range, he was just coming in the door after work. He was still wearing his greasy mechanic's shirt and work boots as he picked up the receiver. He couldn't imagine who would be calling him, but he answered none the less.

"Hello?" He asked, curiosity filling his voice.

"Eyeball? Your mother gave me this number…I didn't know how else to reach you." A familiar, soft, voice explained from the other end of the phone.

He knew who it was immediately. It had caught him off guard, but he recognized Ace Merrill just the same. "Ace? Jesus Christ, Ace is that you?" He laughed heartily. "God, I sure as fuck havn't heard from you in a while. Where ya been?"

"I could say the same for you. What do you say we meet up somewhere? I have a proposition for you. A real opportunity." Ace answered.

Eyeball wasn't sure was to think of this. He knew whatever Ace had in mind, it was criminal. Eyeball had gotten into a bit of trouble about two years back, and he was still under close watch. But if there was one person in the world he was willing to take a risk for, it was Ace Merrill. "Yeah. Where at?" He spoke into the telephone.

Ace smiled on the other end of the phone, Eyeball could hear it in his voice, "Can you make it back home? Meet me at the Mellow Tiger, huh?" He asked.

"Yeah, I could do that. My ma's been bitchin' at me, so I was going to have to head there in a few days anyway. Thursday night?"

"I'll be there." Ace said and hung up without saying goodbye.

For the first time in a long time, Eyeball allowed himself to think about Castle Rock. It was true that his mother had been pestering for him to stop by for some time, especially after Christopher had been murdered, but he had planned on continuing to avoid her, possibly forever. But with Ace, it was different. That was a person that was worth going back to Castle Rock for. Although it had been years since they had last spoken, Eyeball still considered Ace his best friend. He was sorry that they had ever been separated.

Eyeball had a feeling that when he left his shitty apartment in Portland on Thursday, he would be leaving it for good. He didn't know where he would be afterwards. Jail, on the lamb, dead; they all seemed likely possibilities. He didn't really care one way or the other. All of those options seemed better than continuing on in the fashion that he had settled into. None of this, however, stopped him from being _painfully_ curious about what Ace had up his sleeve.

He sat down in his sagging recliner and cracked open a beer. He thought things would seem even better if he had a good buzz going. He closed his eyes and thought of a group of boys who he hadn't thought of in a long time. A group of boys who called themselves The Cobras. Young, handsome, and tough, they had ruled Castle Rock. Eyeball wondered if maybe it was time for two of those boys, who were now undoubtedly men, to re-seize the throne. A few towns over, Ace was contemplating the same thing.


	4. Chapter 4

Gordon LaChance was no longer the twelve year old boy who had ended the summer searching for a dead kid with his buddies. He was pushing thirty and was making a somewhat decent living writing. He was by no means a best-seller, but he was published and taught at the University of Oregon. He had a wife and three sons. He had met his wife in college, and they had fallen in love fast and hard. Their first son was conceived before they had married. She was a patient and intelligent woman with dark brown hair and pale blue eyes. Although he still found her beautiful and loved her a great deal, the marriage had become somewhat tense lately. Gordon had, for the most part, found that hiding in his study and pecking away at his old typewriter was the best course of action to avoid any further disagreements. This is where he sat now.

A glass of brandy sat at his elbow. He took a swig and swallowed it, grimacing briefly at the taste. He could hear his father through the thin wall between the study and the spare bedroom. He could always hear him. "Hurry, hurry, hurry! Ginny, please come here! Virginia! Hurry, hurry, hurry!" All day long, his father shouted that maddening song. The Alzheimer's had gotten to him, and he was no longer the man Gordon had known, and sometimes hated, as his father. When his mother had finally passed away last year, the responsibility fell on his shoulders. So they had moved him here and he had slowly begun to drive Gordon insane with his chant for his dead wife.

He took another sip of the brandy and this time he didn't grimace. He had had a nightmare last night about Ray Brower's body. It had been the shock of seeing that damned newspaper article. Chris had been murdered and now old memories and long forgotten nightmares were resurfacing. He had spent most of the last two days writing out the story of that long summer weekend. The nostalgia had hit him in the heart like a dagger. He longed for those lost days of childhood so badly that he ached. It wasn't that he didn't love his family; it was only that adulthood didn't allow for those kinds of adventures. That kind of close relationships with your friends. The magic was all gone.

He often drank a little too much, but lately he had been drinking a lot too much. His wife, Meredith was her name, had noticed. She hadn't said anything to him directly, but she had been even colder than usual, and had isolated herself from him. He wished he could have spoken to Chris one last time and asked him how he could stop his marriage from destructing. But he hadn't, and now he never could.

Back over in Castle Rock, Ace had had his own share of problems with women. He hadn't married, but there had been a woman. He hadn't loved her, but he had come close. They lived together for a while and their relationship had turned stormy after the miscarriage of a child. Ace had felt relieved with he was told there would be no son or daughter for him to hold responsibility for. But the woman had been devastated. When Ace did not comfort her, either because he did not care or did not know how, she had simply awoken one morning and left. She took her things and slipped out the door before he even knew she had the thought in her head. He had reacted with anger, and he was still mourning her in this way.

He had slept with a great deal of women since then, but he had felt only the desire to humiliate and degrade them. He showed no compassion for any of them and most of them didn't come back for a second round of Ace Merrill. He didn't mind and felt no need to change his ways. There were plenty of women around, especially young and naïve ones.

Women weren't on the forefront of his mind today though. He was getting ready to head down the Mellow Tiger to meet Eyeball. He pulled on his brown work boots and rolled up the cuffs of his jeans. He lit a cigarette, and then started out on his journey. He wore a white t-shirt, with his blue Shimmy's work shirt over it. He wouldn't be going in to work today, but he was short on clothes and even shorter on _clean_ clothes.

As he rounded the first corner to head to the bar, a familiar girl came up to him. She was much younger than him, maybe only nineteen. She approached him shyly, "Um..John, hi. Well I got that number. The phone number you asked me about? I wrote it down for you..here." She handed him a folded piece of paper. Her name was Elise. She was red-headed, green eyed, young, and stupid. Everything Ace liked in a good fling. And she had legs that wouldn't quit. He was watching them now, remembering how it felt to have them wrapped around his torso as he drunkenly pumped his hips up and down. She felt him looking and giggled nervously.

"What do you say about doing me another favor?" He said smugly.

"Oh, um. Sure, sure I could do that. Anything you want." She didn't understand what he was implying. She was only glad to be receiving attention from him.

They quickly turned and went back the way Ace had come from and into his bedroom. Eyeball could wait on him for a while. Ace knew he'd understand.


End file.
